Time & Sourdough Pizza

Time and life fly by when your having fun; learning, laughing and loving. Is amazing to look back at the past 8 months and see how a place that at first felt so foreign feels surprisingly normal now. Korea isn't a place that I/we want to live for a long time...in fact our year here will be more than long enough, but it has taught us so much about the simple pleasures in life, how vital they and the people we surround ourselves are to a happy existence anywhere we may be, and for that alone I am immensely thankful for.

Lately I've been stung by the sourdough bee...I love baking but sourdough is something I'd never thought to try, nor had time to really investigate enough that I felt comfortable to delve into.  It all started when one of my friends here came by to chat one afternoon as I was making some pizza dough for dinner. She said that she LOVED sourdough pizza crust, and did I know how to make some? I told her that I'd never made anything sourdough before, but that I liked sourdough bread and would investigate a little, see if I could successfully make a starter, and then if so, we'd try our hand at sourdough pizza crust.

After reading and reading about sourdough starters I decided to go with a starter recipe that contained a little yeast so that I'd hopefully have a starter that I could use within a week or two.   Here's what I decided to start with:

2 1/4 tsp Active Dry Yeast

2 cups Water, 110 degrees F

3 1/2 cups Bread Flour

1 Tbsp Sugar

After 7 days of covering it loosely with plastic wrap & leaving it on the counter to ferment while stirring it 3 times a day I decided it was time to try using my starter. In my investigations I came across a recipe that sounded promising from another blog; My Sister's Kitchen and decided to give it a go.  The original recipe named "BK’s Sourdough Pizza Crust" called for 1tsp yeast in the sponge, but I decided to forego it as I thought my sourdough starter was strong enough on it's own. (since I'd added yeast in the first place) If you are interested in trying the recipe below if you don't think that your sourdough starter is very strong you might think about adding the yeast. 

Sourdough Pizza Dough

  Makes 4 thin crust pizzas

Ingredients:

Make a sponge with:2 cups warm water 1 c. sourdough starter 1 T. sugar 2 t. salt 2 c. flour 1 t. yeast (optional) When the sponge is bubbly and frothy, mix in 1 T. olive oil and knead in an additional 4 to 4 1/2 c. bread flour.  Directions: Let the dough rise for at least 3-4 hours. If it rises too big before your ready to use it just punch it down a little and let it keep rising. When you are ready to use it break off a large piece and roll it out thin. Should make at least 4 large thin crust pizzas. 

We decided to grill the pizzas but I've also since made the recipe and baked them indoors. Outside it took 10-15 min on the grill for the pizzas to cook & less than 5 minutes for them to be eaten :) Indoors I baked them on the hottest setting of my oven for 15-20 min...took about the same amount of time for us to eat them however ;-)  Thanks for the inspiration Lee Anne!!